Galle (Gally) family

Galle (Gally) is a South German Mennonite family of Swiss origin. An Anabaptist preacher with the name Gally participated in the religious disputation on 16 January 1613 at Wädenswyl in the canton of Zürich and was later sentenced to galley slavery. As far as is known Peter Gally or Galle was the only member of the family to emigrate to the Palatinate; as a young man he settled in Erbesbüdesheim near Alzey. (Uncorroborated tradition has it that bearers of the name went down the Rhine as far as the Netherlands.) Peter Galle probably had only two sons, one of whom, Peter, took over the Geistermühle in 1734. He was married to Anna Kolb of Wolfsheim (probably the younger sister of Dielman and Martin Kolb) and had nine children, all of whom married Mennonites and settled in the vicinity with the exception of Peter, who is said to have emigrated to America. The family is found chiefly in the Uffhofen and Weierhof communities and has produced some important preachers: Peter Galle, d. 1762; Jakob (1734-1801); Johannes (1766-1838); Peter (1758-1825). In 1953 there were about ten Galle families with about 50 souls living in the Palatinate and Hessen. On 12 September 1850, Jakob Galle, the great-grandson of the first miller, emigrated to America from the Geistermühle with his children. Kansas has several families with this name.